OS Awards: Day 1 Thoughts - RaychelSnr's Blog

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RaychelSnr's Blog

OS Awards: Day 1 Thoughts Stuck

Posted on December 28, 2009 at 03:29 PM.

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Each day this week, I am going to be providing my own thoughts on each award we hand out and list who I voted for in our staff vote. So if you are interested in this sort of thing, be sure to read on and see if you agree with my votes or not.

Day 1 was planned to be the busiest day, with 5 Awards being handed out today. For the rest of the week, we will be releasing two Award Winners per day, culminating with the Sports Game of the Year and Developer of the Year on Friday. Here are my thoughts from the day 1 action:

Best Player/Career Mode: I voted for Road to the Show, as did many other OSers on staff and our readers. I don't think there really is much argument against Road to the Show either, it's still the most innovative, comprehensive, streamlined and fun mode out there.

Best Dynasty Mode: Many are wondering why text-sims weren't included in this mode, and the reason is because Text-sims, by and large, are games built off the dynasty mode concept. This award was for the traditional team sports games and I honestly can't think of anything else that comes close to Association right now. Maybe The Show's menus will be reworked or Madden/NCAA might be revamped, do I smell a future blog series?

Most Innovative Feature: Without a doubt, for me at least, the most innovative feature of 2009 was SvR's Create-a-Story mode. Dynamic season and commentary are interesting ideas, but they didn't compel users to completely change the way they play games much like Create-a-Story opened up a whole new realm of user customization. And while TeamBuilder was a solid idea, in my opinion at least, the execution was about as bad as could have been imagined. I'm pro user customization, and that's why I love Create-a-Story mode.

Most Realistic Gameplay: Anytime I can use actual strategies straight from the managers handbook of any sport to win a video game, and on regular occasion as well, a game is very realistic. MLB '09: The Show is, despite some minor faults, the most realistic game released this year. Given the info we have for '10, The Show could be in line for a long reign as champion in this category.

Best Presentation: As much as I hated the gameplay for NCAA Basketball 10, I loved the presentation even more. Integrating real networks into the game is an excellent idea, and I would love to see this expanded to EA's other college game: NCAA Football. How cool would it be to see which network you were televised on each week and then have those graphics overlaying your game?

What did you think about the day one winners? Any surprises? Do you think the Staff and Readers will disagree about future categories later in the week?

Comments

# 1 jyoung @ Dec 28

How cool would it be to see which network you were televised on each week and then have those graphics overlaying your game?
Sad thing is, we kind of had this feature already back on the PS2/Xbox and it still hasn't made the jump to the 360/PS3.

I remember how cool it was to finally make a TV game in NCAA Football after spending the whole season off the radar.

Stuff like this just shows how the NCAA series has actually lost more ground than its gained this generation.